GCPH Seminar Series 17: Lecture 1 - Dr Angela O'Hagan

#CaringEconomyNow: A Call to Action

Providing and receiving care and support forms part of all our lives in different ways over the lifespan. Taking a feminist economics perspective, Angela presented the findings and recommendations of the Commission on a Gender Equal Economy. Angela discussed the gendered dimensions of the care economy, considering how care is valued and remunerated in the realities of our economic and social infrastructure.

The Commission’s call to action is for a ‘Caring Economy Now’. In this model, the provision of care and support is fundamental to our economic, social, and cultural lives, and the provision of care is valued and rewarded accordingly. Angela argued that investment in care and support has to be central to investment in economic development, as our reliance on social infrastructure is as important as physical infrastructure. The Commission’s findings show that such investment brings significantly greater economic returns than investment elsewhere in the economy. 

Putting care at the core of our economic model is part of the healing from Covid-19. The pandemic has exposed the fragmented and under-resourced care infrastructure along with the extant of underlying inequalities particularly experienced by women, disabled people, and people of colour. Angela outlined how a caring economy delivers on equality, sustainability, and wellbeing, and offers a coherent approach to public investment and the allocation of public finance.